Absolute Zero wrote:To get back on the topic of Black Lives Matter, at least a little bit, why is everyone suddenly losing their crap about corporations stepping out and supporting it?
Where was all this anger when they were taking money from everyone hand over fist by raising costs while not matching wages?
Where was all this anger over the last 60 years when they were silent? BLM didn't start when George Floyd was murdered by 4 cops.
The fight for equality didn't start last month.
Could it be y'all didn't care when their silence supported your message?
I ain't saying giant corporations are good and just and jolly. I'm just saying y'all didn't care one way or another when they were supporting your views.
They support BLM, and suddenly "coRPorATIONS! NeEED to STayyyy Ouuuut of POlitIcs" where was that rage when they were supporting Trump for president? Or Romney, any other political election. Where was that rage when Trump, who's brand and company is his name, ran for president? Where was the rage when the Coke brothers were dumping billions to get people elected? Where was the out rage when several of those companies were sending out memos threating people to vote the way they wanted or risk losing their jobs? Seemed pretty quite. Suddenly they come out for BLM and rage!
"They're just trying to make money off people" lol, yeah. That's the point of capitalism and corporations.
Lebron James speaks out about BLM, and the response is "ATHletES shoULD SttttaaaAAAY oUT of POLitICS"
Drew Brees speaks out against kneeling during the antham "He is a brave man and has the right to express his opinion."
Notice a difference? Black man is told to shut up and stay in his lane. White man is lauded for his bravery.
But hey, don't take my word for it. Go google Laura Ingram and Lebron James and Drew Brees.
If you still don't believe, well, I got a fabulous bridge for sale in the absolute largest city in the world. Guaranteed money maker. Spectacular views.
I read your post earlier and I wanted to take some time to think of a response. I don't like speaking off the cuff, I like to consider my words before I use them. I was drafting my response in my head while I was browsing through the news and now I feel like all that time was wasted because I saw something that encapsulated everything wrong with it in a single article.
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/diversity-and-dndJust in case you dont want to read it, this is essentially a public release from WotC explaining how their depictions of orcs and drow have been culturally insensitive and they're going to change things to do better. This is a FANTASY GAME. The humans are just humans. The elves are just elves. The dwarves are just dwarves. And the orcs are just orcs. This is why the public collectively groans every time a big corperation decides to hop on board the bandwagon, because eventually it turns to the customers, the hobbyists, or just the fans and tell us that our hobby, which for so long was just fine, is now bad and now it has to change. And if you're against that change, well that makes you bad too.
They just did the same thing with Magic the Gathering. A game about monsters and magic, factions, guilds, and alliances, warfare and conquest across different dimensions and planes, and now they're purging their collections of anything that could ever be remotely misconstrued as racist or problematic. Cards like Crusade, which in a deck of white creatures(Mostly knights, soldiers, and priests) gives them more attack and defense. Because of the cultural implications, it's not only being banned but removed from any further prints and recalled from retail sales. This is insanity.
Several people earlier made a joke about Prowl being left in the image Hasbro put out because we all expected that he would be removed. There are still people calling for him to be removed from that image if you look at Hasbro's social media, no matter what platform. And what's next, are they going to pull Prowl from retail sales? Just tell any store that has Prowl on the shelves to either return or trash them. How about removing the character from the upcoming cartoon? Why not pull all the older cartoons and release an edited "SPECIAL EDITION" with no Prowl in it. You know, like the soviets used to do with people that disappeared in the middle of the night.
THIS is why people don't want corperate entities to get involved. I don't care about celebrities or athletes, they're people, they can do what they want. Businesses exist to provide a product or service and EVERY SINGLE TIME this comes up it ends one of two ways: Either they pay lip service and they get accused of not doing enough or they go the other extreme and start destroying and sanitizing their entire business lest they be branded the next problematic entity, even though the action of doing so is just going to be taken as evidence that they were already a problematic entity.
We have some real **** problems in this world. Forget police, lets call it athoritarian overreach and abuse as a whole so we can cover law enforcement, courts, judges, and everyone else that falls under that umbrella. We have class disparities in this world that leave people **** starving when we could be doing more to help boost their infrastructure and quality of life. Don't even have to leave the country for that, we could start with our own homeless populations. But instead we get **** THIS. Orcs are racist. Drow are racist. I'm sure if they pull their head out of their ass long enough to remember the Duergar, THEY'LL be racist. Trading cards are racist. Transformers are racist. I am so **** DONE with this whole thing.
You want to have some kind of discussion and change you need to start with THIS. And I'm sorry if I'm not coming off as my normal, more reserved and eloquent self but right now I am **** apoplectic with rage. You want to fight for equal civil rights, I **** promise you this isn't helping, because it's making people like me look at the whole movement and say to hell with it. Dungeons and Dragons has NOTHING to do with police brutality. Magic the Gathering has NOTHING to do with criminal injustice in the court system. Transformers has NOTHING to do with wealth disparity in marginalized communities. But the people **** BENT on finding racism in EVERYTHING will find it whereever they can and then shame those people into submission.
If you somehow think that I'm going to be swayed or guilted into joining your cause because you've found a way to impact my hobbies, the things I use to temporarily escape this and recharge to come back and fight the good fight, then you're wrong. And I don't mean to direct this at you personally. But this ranks right up there with someone, because I happen to play a trading card game, walking up to me and screaming "RACIST" and then pulling the cards out of my hands because they're problmatic. That's not how you make an ally. That's how you make enemies. If someone's **** hobby makes you uncomfortable because you think it's racist and it's NOT carving little swastika shaped flutes, you need some god damn counseling.
Rant over.